


Childhood Inheritance

by Depths



Series: In a mockery of recollection [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Feral Link (Legend of Zelda), Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Missing Scene, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26503888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Depths/pseuds/Depths
Summary: He defeats the Waterblight, and the voices in his head are all silent save one.
Relationships: Daruk & Link & Mipha & Revali & Urbosa & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link & Mipha (Legend of Zelda)
Series: In a mockery of recollection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926892
Comments: 26
Kudos: 490





	Childhood Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place right after the waterblight ganon fight, which coincidentally was the first one I ever did! falls place into the same universe as [Animalistic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26457157)

He stood gasping for breath. 

Not even charred bits of malice remained. Nothing was left of the thing that had just moments ago filled the small chamber. Nothing except for the taste in the back of his throat and the malice cloying and black under his nails. It had writhed and twisted and destroyed itself before his eyes. Molding away, erupting with light.

His head was quiet. For the first time, it made him uneasy. They were rarely silent, speaking throughout the machine monster. But now there was nothing. Link walked to the glowing pedestal without being asked. He watched dispassionately as it did whatever it was supposed to do, glowing bright and blue, and turned his back on it. 

Climbing on top of Vah Ruta now was a very different experience. Quiet— beyond quiet. No need for a warning cry or a whispered call. Everything was so silent. 

He plopped to the ground on the top of the unliving beast, legs left dangling limply over the side. Everything was beginning to ache the way it did beyond the hunt. When the prey was caught and the predator had been slain. When he slumped in the grass, surrounded by blood, or knee-deep in snow at the top of a mountain. 

He didn’t feel successful. He just felt quiet and empty. 

“Hello, Link.” 

Link spun around. No weapon. No shield. The spear he had found was long abandoned, out of reach, forgotten back below inside the mechanical den. 

The figure that, glowing blue, _ (blue, why are you blue? Shouldn’t be blue. Was never blue. She’s supposed to be—) _ smiled at him. Her small hands nervously clasped together. “It’s good to speak to you like this again.”

The statue stood before him, and he knew who she was. 

The noise in his head had become the figure standing before him. Smiling at him. Waiting, all this time, ghostly and blue. 

A delicate hand extended towards him. He only watched it, his eyes wide, and when he didn’t jump away she gently touched his arm. It felt like cool water. It felt like floating. 

But he  _ felt _ it at all. She was real to feel, in whatever form she took. Outside of his head, she was more than garbled, silky noise. 

“Link,” she said again. His head snapped up, eyes instinctively finding hers. Their color also wasn’t quite right. It made his head hurt. Made his throat feel solid and rocky as if he had tried to swallow bones whole. “Take it. My healing— my Grace is yours.” She paused, eyes searching his. He struggled to understand what she was trying to convey, but the urgency in her tone was unmistakable. Her hand pressed harder. He stared back down at it. “I will  _ always _ heal you,” she said firmly. Her words were becoming more and more rushed as if she had to force them out before she couldn’t. “It doesn’t matter if you remember me. It doesn’t matter if we can’t— if we can’t communicate the way we used to. If you even consider me a friend, as we once were... as I hope we still are.” 

Link tilted his head, uncomprehending. It was too much noise too fast. Some of them were familiar (all of them familiar. Every single one rang in his ears like a song he could sing along to, that he had to sing along too— and yet knew none of the lyrics. They resonated familiarly and softly and fell just short of his reach.) but none of them held purchase in his head. 

Mipha stared at him a long moment, lips pressed tight and gaze intense. It sagged into nothing when Link failed to say anything. Still, she smiled before his stomach could twist up. It almost became real when Link scooted over, allowing her to sit down beside him. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. Those ones he knew. He bared his teeth at her as widely as he could, and wiggled happily when she smiled back. “I’ll cherish any of the time we have left together.”

They weren’t words that made sense. Link whistled, high and short, in reply, and stared off towards the sinking sun. The silence was something nearly peaceful if she was right beside him. It didn’t matter if his head was quiet. She sat right there. ethereal and translucent, but beside him. He could just turn to look at her each time he wasn’t sure. 

The feeling of familiarity swooped low and dizzying in his stomach. His head ached.

"Mi––phaa," Link said slowly, swinging his legs over the side of Vah Ruta. "Mii–ph–phuh."

"Yes, Link? _ " _

He couldn’t get over that he could see her. That she was  _ real. _ While her voice still rang more in his head than through the air, and her body was a transparent blue-green, she was visible. Able to sit beside him, wavering like solid water. The others had never done that before. He wondered if they had bodies too? Maybe they were all waiting like she was–– waiting for him to let them out. Maybe these machines were their own dens.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.  It was quiet. But he could see her. She was all that kept him from panicking at the lack of noise.

"Mi––phah," Link sounded out again. "Mipha. My f-free-end, Mipha."

Vah Ruta remained dormant and empty. Only he remained. A lone griever in an empty grave. She had died in there. Right under his feet. Lost her life to the thing that had erupted from the strange controlling pedestals.

Link traced his tongue along his molars for the hundredth time. He swore he could still feel the ooze between his teeth. Taste the putrid slime on his tongue. He didn't regret biting the monster. It didn't matter how much everyone screamed, or the bile in his mouth. If he could have ripped it apart with his teeth alone he would have.

(That thing had been responsible for the sweetest voice in his head. It had killed it. Killed  _ her. _ Killed his––)

Mipha was smiling at him. Her hands, glowing and pellucid, were cool on his. Or maybe that was just the lake water drying on his skin. He couldn't tell. Everything felt a little stranger, both a little harder and easier to process at the same time when she was right there.

"I am your friend," She agreed. Her hands were small. Smaller than his. He was small too–– but she was even smaller. Petite and soft and kind. "You are my greatest friend, Link."

He couldn't help but smile back at her. It pulled awkwardly at his face, more a baring of teeth than what she so easily did with her own ghostly visage, but it made her seem to shine brighter. "Grr, Grea–at," He sounded out. "Great-est fr-fur–end. You a-are my, greatest friend."

Vah Ruta churned under him. He could feel it whirring. Like a giant river flowing under his feet, massive and deep.

She had died in there. She was dead.

"Mipha," Link said. Tears filled his eyes and he blinked furiously, unsure why it was happening. "Mipha. My greatest friend."

He knew his friend. He knew she was Mipha. He knew that whatever the other noises meant, she cared a lot about him. Too much. He didn't even know why. She had been there since the very beginning, soft and gentle, cool water on overheated skin, and yet he still barely understood who or what she was.

"Mipha," He choked out.

Her arms felt like nothing but cool air when they tried to hold him, and even that was something he had to convince himself of.

"I'm here, Link," She sobbed, voice breaking, and her phantom touch remained as far away as the water lapping distantly against Ruta's gravely still sides.

**Author's Note:**

> seems like im just gonna write a bunch of botw oneshots at this rate lmfao
> 
> ill be doing a Linked Universe story next, hopefully. Ive been thinking about it for days


End file.
